2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference

The United Nations Climate Change Conference was the 18th annual session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th Session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (the protocol having been developed under the UNFCCC’s charter). The conference took place from Monday 26 November to Saturday 8 December 2012, at the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha . [1]

The conference reached an agreement to extend the life of the Kyoto Protocol, which was expected to expire at the end of 2012, until 2020, and to reify the 2011 Durban Platform , meaning that a successor to the Protocol is set to be developed by 2015 and implemented by 2020. The concept of “loss and damage”, an agreement in principle that could be financially responsible for other nations for their failure to reduce carbon emissions. [2]

Background

President of the conference Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah and Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres (left) at COP18

The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are annual multi-lateral meetings of governments held in different locations around the world under the sponsorship of the United Nations . The conferences seek to address the threat of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide . Between 2000-2011 carbon dioxide growth in the atmosphere Was 20% of the total growth since prehistoric concentration level (391.57 ppm in 2011 and 369.52 ppm in 2000) [3] The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmospherehas reached 391 ppm (parts per million) as of October 2012 [4] [5] versus the pre-industrial concentration was 280 ppm [6] which the consensus of world climate scientists is unsustainable.

The conferences are attended by a number of different countries, and they are attended by various environmental groups. Consequently, the conferences are well covered by the world media agencies. The 2012 conference is held at the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha, and has a projected attendance of 17,000 participants. [7]The conference is casually referred to as COP18 / CMP. In 2012, the UNFCCC conference serves as an umbrella for seven competitor and interrelated meeting groups collectively called the Doha 2012 UNFCCC conference. The main conference is also preceded by several topical pre-sessions.

Pre-session to the 2012 UNFCCC conference

70th meeting of the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board (19 to 23 November)

Least Developed Countries Preparatory Meetings (20 to 21 November)

Small Island Developing States Preparatory Meetings (22 to 23 November)

African Group Preparatory Meetings (22 to 23 November)

Informal pre-sessional meeting of the parties to exchange further views on the possible recommendations on loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change (24 November)

G7 & China Preparatory Meetings (24 to 25 November)

Concurrent conferences under the umbrella of the 2012 UNFCCC conference

The Doha 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conferences is an agglomeration of multiple connected conferences that is conducted in a semi-integrated fashion.

Eighteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18)

Eighth session of the Conference of the Parties to the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8)

Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 37)

Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and TechnologicalAdvice (SBSTA 37)

Seventeenth Session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (second part) (AWG-KP 17.2)

Fifteenth Session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (second part) (AWG-LCA 15.2)

First Session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (second part) (ADP 1.2)

Conference focus

The conference focused on five aspects of climate change:

Adaptation – social and other changes that must be made to adapt to climate change . Adaptation might be inclusive, but not limited to, changes in agriculture and urban planning.

Finance – how countries will finance adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, whether from public or private sources.

Mitigation – steps and actions that the countries of the world can take to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Technology – the technologies that are needed to adapt or mitigate climate change.

Loss and damage – first articulated at the 2012 conference and in part at the agreement that was signed at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun . It introduces the principle that countries may be financially offset in their carbon emissions. [8]

Conference structure

The conference is a two-week conference of the following activities:

Speeches from UN bureaucrats

Speeches from dignitaries and sometimes heads of state

Closed working sessions by various working groups

Open breakouts and working sessions by various working groups

Announcements by countries on a particular position

Announcements of agreements by UN bureaucrats

The conference will sometimes be late night (or all night) working sessions when diplomats can not agree to the terms and conditions of agreements and sometimes staged walk-outs by some parties is not uncommon. The last several conferences of this type have been broken down in the first half of the year, followed by a series of rounds of very late night discussions, and then followed by an extension of the conference.

External to the conference, the conference attracts well organized protests, rallies and demonstrations by various environmental groups. In recent conferences, some activist groups have given their daily reports that they have seen advancing or detracting from their particular ideological position.

Conference outcomes

The Conference produced a package of documents collectively titled The Doha Climate Gateway on objections from Russia and other countries at the session. [9] The documents collectively contained:

An eight-year extension of the Kyoto Protocol until 2020 limited in scope to only 15% of the global carbon dioxide emissions due to the lack of participation of Canada, Japan, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, New Zealand and the United States the fact that developing countries like China, the world’s largest emitter, India and Brazil are not subject to any emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. [10]

Language on loss and damage, formalized for the first time in the conference documents.

The conference made little progress towards the funding of the Green Climate Fund . [11]

Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine are at the end of the session, they have a right under the session’s rules. In closing the conference, the President said that he would note these objections in his final report. [11]

Reaction to the conference outcomes

Reaction to the conference outcomes was characterized as “modest, at best” by NPR . [12] Kieren Keke , Foreign Minister of Nauru and the representative of the Alliance of Small Island States at the conference, [13] was quoted by the BBC as saying,

“It is possible to lock us in the trajectory to a 3, 4, 5 ° C rise in global temperatures, even though we agreed to keep the global average temperature rise of 1.5 ° C to ensure survival of all islands, ” [11]

Others like Martin Khor of the South Center, an association of developing nations saw a more positive outcome, specifically regarding the Loss and Damage Mechanism :

“It’s a breakthrough … The term Loss and Damage is in the text – this is a huge step in principle. [11]

Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute told NPR about the Loss and Damage Mechanism that:

“This is not a problem for people who think about climate change.” And while I think it’s a very important question for people to answer, I do not think the world is ready for that yet. [14]

“there’s no bridge, no pathway between now and the $ 100 billion number … so one of the real crunch issues here, which I think will determine whether we will get out of the building with an agreement or not, is whether developed countries are ready to at least say that they are going to match what they’ve been providing thus far. ” [15]

Criticisms of the conference and the UNFCCC Process

For more details on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change .

The overall umbrella and processes of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol have been criticized by some as having achieved its stated goals of reducing carbon dioxide (the primary culprit blamed for global rising temperatures of the 21st century). [16] [ not in quote given ]Todd Stern – The US Climate Change has sent a message to the United States on the subject of climate change. , so it makes countries nervous about growth and development. He went on to explain that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a multilateral body concerned with climate change and can be an inefficient system for international enacting policy. Because the framework system includes many countries and countries. [17]

Participant statements and conference activity

Statement by Christiana Figueres

Governments will decide how and timetable to reach effective universal climate agreement adopté year in 2015 and to enter into power from 2020 Christiana Figueres , the UNFCCC executive secretary: “The Necessary technology and policy tools are available to gouvernements and societies, but time is very Short – only 36 months to reach a universal agreement before 2015. “What we need to do is urgently implemented”. [18]

Statement by John Key Prime Minister John Key

The New Zealand government said it would not be signing up to a second commitment to the Kyoto Protocol , a decision criticized by the World Wildlife Fund . [19] Prime Minister John Key said New Zealand would not lead the way on climate change, instead opting to be a “fast follower”. [20]

Statement by Philippine Envoy Naderev Sano

The Philippine Government called for urgent action to halt climate change, emphasizing their recent experience with a deadly typhoon . “We are suffering and procrastinating here, we are suffering.” Heartbreaking is not unique to the Philippines. said Philippine sent Naderev Sano, who is a member of the Philippines’ Climate Change Commission. [21]

Statement by Japanese Masahiko Horie

“Only developed countries are legally bound by the Kyoto protocol and their emissions are only 26% [of global emissions.] If we continue the same, only one quarter of the world is legally bound and three quarters of countries are not bound at all. ” [22]

United Nations and UNEP: methane thawing from permafrost

The United Nations has a strong warning against methane in the permafrost thawing . This has not yet been included in the future climate. Permafrost contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon – the amount currently in the atmosphere. When it thaws, it could push global warming past one of the key “tipping points” that scientists believe could lead to runaway climate change. UNEP called Expired IPCC to Provide gouvernements with The Most up-to-dated knowledge in the next IPCC deferrals next year. [22]

Non-participant statements

World Bank

World Bank published a report in November 2012 demanding the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations. 4 ° C warmer world must be avoided – we need to warm below 2 ° C. Even with the current mitigation commitment is about 20 percent likelihood of exceeding 4 ° C by 2100. [23]

The World Bank and the International Energy Agency warned that the world is heading for unpredictable warming – of between 4 ° C and 6 ° C – if we are not reversed. That scale would result in droughts, floods, heatwaves and fiercer storms, declining agricultural productivity, and plant and animal extinctions, and wide human migration. [24]

Youth

Further information: Youth Climate Movement

The first time in history is a conference for climate change negotiations. Youth in more than 13 Arab countries, launching the Arab Youth Climate Movement: “It’s basically our role as civil society to make sure that the government is doing its best to provide us with the best quality of life and it’s our right to human beings to ensure a healthy future for us and generations to come. ” [25]

The New Zealand Youth Delegation strongly criticized its own government at the beginning of the conference, saying New Zealand’s withdrawal from a second period of commitment under the Kyoto Protocol [26] was “embarrassing, short-sighted and irresponsible”. New Zealand received two ‘Fossil of the Day’ awards for ‘actively hampering international progress’. [27]

Friends of the Earth International

“Posted on Friends of the Earth International’s website,” http://www.unfcc-cfc.gc.ca/en/countries/index.htm [28]

Greenpeace

Lauri Myllyvirta from Greenpeace Nordic states the key reason we are heading for 4 ° C of warming is coal burning. Massive expansion in the use of coal CO 2 emissions in recent years. Also the World Bank made to avoid 4 ° C Warmer World. No new coal plants were constructed in Europe after 2007, but 1,200 coal plants are now being planned elsewhere: they can be stopped. [29]

The EU spent two thirds of its energy research funding on nuclear technologies in 2011. Some countries maintain direct subsidies to oil consumption and coal mining. Are providing decisive economic benefits to the environment and the costs of accidents and decommissioning. According to Greenpeace, it is necessary to increase the cost of energy, and make energy efficiency more profitable. [30]

Keepers of prosperity

Eren Swobodan of the German group “Keepers of prosperity – Bewahrer Wohlstandes” criticized the inaction of the German government. He called for crime charges against people who express doubts on the scientific consensus. In this interview, he wrote “the world can not afford another event like 2004 and 2007” and “everything has to be done to avoid it”, but he added that “they will not make it easy for us “. According to Swobodan there is time until 2018, anything beyond that would be too late. In a national campaign published by several German newspapers the group showed heartbreaking pictures of children in Germany.

See also

Global warming portal

2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference

2013 United Nations Climate Change Conference

Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants